q: what do you get a deadhead for christmas?

a: this book.

‘there’s nothing wrong with bear that a few billion less brain cells wouldn’t cure’

-jerry garcia

there is no separating the history of the grateful dead and the life story of this man. you can try by arguing that they moved in separate parallel psychedelic universes, and that might be true, but it could also be argued that they might be entirely irrelevant to musical history without each other.

to paraphrase the introduction from the book’s cover, bear was one of the most iconic figures in the cultural revolution that changed both america and the world during the 1960’s (both good and bad).

an early pioneer in the production and distribution of lsd (when it was still legal), his product helped drive ken kesey and his merry prankster’s acid tests. by most accounts, a vast majority of the crowd and musicians at the monterey pop festival were served his latest batch (‘monterey purple’). the shipment he sent to john lennon shortly after the festival was instrumental in the production of the beatles’ ‘magical mystery tour’ album and film.

convinced that the grateful dead were destined to become one of the world’s greatest rock bands, owsley provided the money that kept them going in their early years. as their long time soundman, he also faithfully recorded many of their early live performances. he also designed the massive pioneering sound system known simply as the ‘wall of sound’.

of the approximately 2300 shows the dead are known to have performed in their thirty years, it is estimated that close to 2000 of them have some remnant of them recorded in some form. there is good reason to believe bear was largely responsible for initiating this phenomenon. at first it was for his own enjoyment, but then the band also starting listening to see how they sounded to the audience. on top of that, bear would also record the various bands from the era that played in the shows with them on a given night. his ‘sonic journals’, as he called them, still exist. all on analog tapes, they are reaching the end of their shelf life and there is a push by the surviving family to get them digitallized before they degrade any further.

from a child born to a kentucky blueblood political dynasty, to his death on a road outside his ranch in the outback of australia, this is the story of a very unique and intelligent individual. i have heard many stories about bear in the various books and articles i have read about the dead over the years, but this spins a lot more tales (and dispels a few myths). a must read for any one interested in the evolution of the counter culture of the sixties.